3 Bad Driving Habits That Can End Up Scrapping Your Car

4th Dec, 2017

We all drive differently. Our techniques on the road are shaped by our experiences, our preferences, and even our personalities (although obviously, in an ideal world that last one shouldn’t really come into it!). Through the way we drive and treat our cars, sometimes habits can emerge that don’t exactly do them a lot of good. And while scrapping your car can be a very rewarding process, that tends to mostly hold true only when you’re ready to do so! This week on the blog here at Scrap Car Network, we’re looking at just a few of the worst offenders.

Amongst our top five bad driving habits are:

Abrupt acceleration and braking

Resting your hand on the gearstick

Neglecting your warning lights

Right then…ready to find out why they’re a problem?

Sudden Acceleration And Braking

We’ve all been guilty of this at some stage or another – after all, we were all new drivers once! But abruptly stopping and starting on a constant basis can have serious repercussions for your car. Basically, you’re not only straining the components, but also making your car use far more fuel than you really need. Plus, all the harsh braking will wear out your braking pads and rotors; two pretty important parts of our car!

Resting Your Hand On The Gearstick

OK, so we can all agree that number one is just plain bad driving. Whether you mean to or not, it’s obvious the kind of effect it can have on your car. But just resting you hand on the gearstick, nothing wrong with that, right? Well, actually, there is! The gearstick is connected to the selector fork, which makes contact with a rotating cuff in order to change gears. When you rest your hand on it, you’re pressing down on that connection, causing pressure and premature wear and tear on the fork. Once again, this can end up being a serious problem if it goes on long enough.

Ignoring The Warning Lights

Admittedly, you can probably get away with putting off dealing with one or two warning lights. Then again, there are some you should definitely deal with immediately. The challenge is working out the difference between them! If you don’t know what a warning light does, we’d advise definitely looking it up before you dismiss it. Even if you think you’ve got a pretty good idea, it can never hurt to double-check. You might regret not doing so when you’re on the side of that motorway in a car with a dead engine.

By avoiding these three mistakes, you can drive your car more carefully and safely, vastly extending its lifespan. And when it comes to the end of that lifespan, you can bet that Scrap Car Network are the ones to call! Scrapping your car with us is easy – all you have to do is visit our homepage and enter in your car reg and postcode to find yourself looking at an instant scrap car quote. Couldn’t hurt to look, could it?